Stateway Gardens was a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA)

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

project A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular goal. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of even ...

located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. It was located alongside the

Dan Ryan Expressway The Dan Ryan Expressway is an expressway in Chicago that runs from the Circle Interchange with Interstate 290 (I-290) near Downtown Chicago through the South Side of the city. It is designated as both I-90 and I-94 south to 66th Street, a d ...

, adjacently north of the former

Robert Taylor Homes Robert Taylor Homes was a public housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois from 1962 to 2007. The largest housing project in the United States, it consisted of 28 virtually identical high-rises, set ...

, and was part of the State Street Corridor that included other CHA properties:

, Dearborn Homes, Harold Ickes Homes and

Hillard Homes Hilliard Towers Apartments, formerly known as the Raymond Hilliard Homes CHA housing project, is a residential high-rise development in the near South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by Bertrand Goldberg and is bounded by Clark Street, ...

. Stateway Gardens was home to people living in mid- and high-rise

apartment building An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

s. Finished by the late 1950s, Stateway Gardens was plagued by a large amount of

gang violence A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

, and

drug abuse Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...

. The area gradually became more neglected and underserved by city authorities and the local police department throughout its existence which led to mass abandonment and

urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...

. Consequently, the housing project was fully demolished in 2007.

Construction

In 1955, construction at Stateway Gardens commenced, with 1,644 units planned in eight high-rise buildings. The total cost for the project was $22 million. Three years later, construction was complete and approximately 3,000 people moved in. In 1978, a major CHA renovation plan costing $106.2 million was undertaken. This project rehabilitated Stateway Gardens,

and most of the

ABLA Abla is a municipality, former bishopric and Latin Catholic titular see in Almería province, in Andalusia, southeast Spain. History It is considered to be the Abula mentioned by Ptolemy in his ''Geographia'' (II 6, 60) as located in the Iber ...

Homes on Chicago's Near West Side.

Problems and crime

In August, 1984, Stateway Gardens was within the six poorest U.S.

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

tracts, according to a

Roosevelt University Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The unive ...

study. Cabrini–Green on the North Side ranked seventh in the same study. Amid rising crime in CHA developments in the early 1980s, the

Chicago Police Department The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind t ...

launched a Public Housing Crime Unit to replace private security guards at those sites. In 1988, (prior to the forming of the CHA Police Department) the South Side's Wentworth Police District (which included Stateway Gardens and the

) had 67 homicides, the highest of any district in the city. Stateway Gardens was infamous for its high rate of violent crime and drug activity through the late 1990s.

Re-Organization

The federal government created Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (known as

HOPE VI HOPE VI is a program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is intended to revitalize the worst public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments. Its philosophy is largely based on New Urban ...

) in 1993 as a way to provide funds for cities to demolish dilapidated public-housing units and replace them with mixed-income communities. In 1987, federal officials seized control of all

Chicago Housing Authority The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is a municipal corporation that oversees public housing within the city of Chicago. The agency's Board of Commissioners is appointed by the city's mayor, and has a budget independent from that of the city of C ...

holdings and property amid allegations of corruption and graft. The CHA would remain under federal receivership until 2010.

Demolition

In 1996, demolition of Cabrini–Green began. This marked the start of what eventually came to be known as the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation. One year later, demolition began at the

. In 2000, the CHA formally approved the 10-year Plan for Transformation to remake public housing and demolition began at Stateway Gardens in 2001. In October 2006, families living in the last remaining building (3651–53 S. Federal St.) at Stateway Gardens were scheduled to leave. The building was finally demolished in June 2007, making way for Phase 1 of the mixed income development Park Boulevard, half of which was already completed prior to the demolition and resident relocation processes. The CHA used its One Strike department to determine who would quality for Section 8 relocation.

Notable residents

Ronnie Lester Ronnie Lester (born January 1, 1959) is an retired American basketball player and basketball executive. Lester was an NCAA All-American at the University of Iowa, leading Iowa to the 1980 NCAA Final Four. Lester was a member of the 1979 USA Bask ...

, University of Iowa All American, NBA Player for Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, NBA Scout for Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns.

References

{{reflist Public housing in Chicago South Side, Chicago Residential skyscrapers in Chicago Demolished buildings and structures in Illinois Former buildings and structures in Chicago Urban decay in the United States 1955 establishments in Illinois 2007 disestablishments in Illinois Residential buildings completed in 1955 Buildings and structures demolished in 2007